is this the next tesla? a silicon valley startup all electric super car. we'll sit down with the ceo. plus, using big data to disrupt the banking industry. our reporters syndicated columni columnist jenny wong, this week on "press here." >> good morning, everyone, i'm scott mcgrew, 11 years ago a guy who liked cars but had no long history of building them founded tesla motors and took a prototype of his electric car out to pebble beach and the car show to let people see it and history was made.

if that is a blue print for success, my first guess is following the blueprint down to the last millimeter. christopher hiser also showed off his prototype, electric car, at pebble beach, a half million dollar super car. like the tesla, it is built in silicon valley and runs on elect trons taking you to 0 to 60 in less than 3.5 seconds. a graduate of carnegie melon and he has not spent a single day working for a detroit automaker. we now know him of smart news and introducing jenny wong of the charlotte observer. thank you for being with us. you really are following tesla's footprint. is that because they did it right or because to investors and car buyers we can say it's just like tesla. >> they did it right.

if you look at tesla as a success story, they started with a vision to produce an outstanding product and then they worked within the confines of silicon valley and really leveraged what we do best, integration of software and hardware together and produced a car with an extremely small amount of money and produced it in a very short amount of time. ten years ago people were looking at tesla with a big question mark. now with a model s outselling all of the other marks in their category, i think six quarters in a row now, it's a success. we involve people from very senior people from tesla early in the process, including one of the co-founders and engineering directors and learned a lot from them and other ev startups, whether successful or not. you've got to learn from success and failure. that's something we spent a lot of time thinking about when we founded the company back in 2010 and working in secret for the past four and a half years to bring our product to market.

>> unlike the founder of tesla, you actually do have a background in automotive design. in your college days you were actually four-time national champion of the society of automotive engineers for the annual offer design competition. what is it like to going back to one of your first loves in your new company? >> i think something you'll find with any entrepreneur, passion has to play a part. and my co-founder, 18 years at intel before joining the renovo team have in spades, whether it's traveling to races or driving cars on race tracks, you know, the car is in our blood. we see this huge opportunity, a transformation of the industry and it's something that the car is coming to silicon valley. if you open the hood, you'll find 80 embedded processors and 1,000 sensors and high speed networks and it looks like more

like a data center than a car and that's only increasing as a function of time. we feel tesla was a trail blazer but silicon valley is the next place to best the technology companies and going to require a broad range of products and technologies to make it work. >> as impressive as the inside of the car is, one of the most striking things is the outside. >> let me point out is not really your car, right? it's a shelby, which is very similar to what tesla did because of the loet us, they took a lotus and turned it into an electric car. maybe i'm interrupting her question, why not start with your own car completely? >> tesla showed that a great model for a company in the silicon valley, pick a partner that has a lot of experience building fast, safe reliable ohio performance cars. designing a car is a big challenge. tesla has done that with the model s and spending $2 billion in capital -- >> there's the reason. >> for us, we wanted to do

something that followed that model but it was really important for us to pick an american partner for the chassis. you didn't think of a more iconic brand shelby, building super cars six decades and one of the most enduring brands in the united states. we couldn't be happier to work with them. the chassis that we base our car on is a fantastic platform. it's factory modified and delivered to us. we think even high levels of performance, it's a perfect platform. >> you haven't said about how much this is going to cost although the estimates i've seen are in the stratosphere, mid six figures i guess. is there any social benefit to this whatsoever or are you really building a super play thing for the super rich? >> that's a great question. you know, our car is going to cost $529,000, it's in presales now, we're going to production at the start of next year and deliver to our very lucky customers before the end of

2015. to answer your question, the super car market plays a very important role in the technology development of the automotive sector. if you look -- it's one of the reasons why we focus on performance. if you look at innovations like injection overhead cams, turbo chargers and carbon fiber, they were pioneered by people forming performance at the highest level. super cars in the '90s and part of the model s and i-3 and allows cars to be lighter and safer and use less gas today. you cannot deliver our technology at a 50,000 or $20,000 price point. what you can do is deliver it to the marketplace and allow people to understand how it's going to work and lay the groundwork for how high performance products of today become tomorrow. >> you get attention to. you'll get more attention with a half million dollar super car than you would necessarily with a $22,000 electric car. >> yeah. >> does your road map -- pardon

the use of the term -- does the road map call for bringing the technology down to where only the merely incredibly rich rather than the vastly super rich can afford it or do you see yourself remaining at the very high end of the niche. >> nothing would make us happier than to see things we're working on go into the mass market. we're pushing the technology as hard as we can and focusing three to five years out ahead of where major oems is working, it allows us to build technologies in partnership with those companies will find a broader market. going from what we do today to higher volumes is all about cost containment and what giga factory is all about and initiatives are about. they take immense amounts of capital and time. you still need people pushing the envelope of what's possible. we think the performance market where it's positioned is a fantastic place to do that and allows us to do things as spiration, we wants kids to be

proud to put poeflters in their room encourage them and inspire them to be automotive engineers and challenges of transportation in the 21st century. there's everything from people movers to giant earth movers and that technology base needs all types of companies and all types of technologies, we're part of that story and part of that continue you'll. >> i have to make this the last question, where do you see yourself in ten years? you've gone through model one. you've learned some things. where would you like to be? a super car manufacturer or like tesla, we're going to come out with a sedan? >> i think that the opportunities for us are huge. we think of ourselves as a very diversified company. it's how we demonstrate what's possible and how we get customers engaged in the technology that's available today. but we also believe platforms we're building have applications far beyond the super car segment. we mean to pursue those and work with our partners and doing

announcements later this year of big technology companies, boek inside and outside the automotive industry working with us. >> chris, why don't you make that announcement here. i'm serious, you come here and make that announcement when that comes. >> that sounds great. >> chris heiser, thanks for being with us. disrupting the loan industry by ignoring credit history in terms of credit future.

welcome back to "press here", would lends a chunk of money, say $10,000 to someone just out of college, no income, no real assets and very little credit history? a bank almost certainly would not. if i told you that same person just graduated from say, harvard business school, is about to start her job on wall street next week that kind of changes thing. i would lend because that person

has a future. banks loan based on what you've done in the past. common sense you should base a loan based on what the person should do in the future. the general idea behind the lone company earnest which looks behind credit history and fico scores and looks at potential when it decides to whom to loan. the founder of earnest loans, a harvard business grad who had a tough time getting a loan. thanks for being with us this morning. >> so it would seem obvious, but banks have been doing this for a long time. they must know what they are doing. why is your system better? >> yeah, thanks, scott. i think what we do is we do the most thorough underwriting in the whole country and do that by really digging into everything about a person's full profile. so we're looking at their education and employment history, not just at a point in time. we're looking at metrics of financial responsibility. we look at bank accounts, late fees or lack there of.

>> so most banks what they are looking at, try to make the process as quick as possible. what we're trying to do, go back to 150 years ago where your banker sat across the table and got to know your full story. we're incorporating the full picture. >> you literally look at people's linkedins. >> that's one of the ways we look at their employment history. things like your 401(k), your retirement account, banks don't do that not for a credit card or small loans. we're able to see these metrics of saving for the future and financial responsibility that big banks don't look at. >> someone who takes a big chunk and puts it towards retirement is probably an intelligent financial person and trust worthy. >> and planning for the future. >> one of the things you're looking at is education and earning potential. i was wondering, if i majored in french literature would you judge me to be less credit worthy than electrical engineering? >> i think we don't have

anything that's prescriptive. we try to take every applicant and look at them as an individual. french literature and you're a teacher, very financially responsible and saving every month, that's what we're trying to look at you as a person. on the other side, you're a computer scientist and software engineer and income is growing quickly, maybe your expenses are higher, but nothing is prescriptive. our model and software looks at every person as an individual. that's a big break through and that's not the way it's done today. >> so you're using technology a great deal but you're also looking -- because you're looking at things that aren't necessarily always looked at and what are the privacy implications of all of that? are you picking through my entire life? >> our philosophy here is there's a couple of things. first is our typical client is a digital native. a bank is going to look through the bank statements for a home loan and going to loan through -- create a whole

profile. we make it very quick and easy and cheap. on the other side of that, what our focus is, it should be about what you deserve to pay. and in -- if you're very low risk, by us digging in deeper, that actually gets you a much better rate and that's why you should want our type of service. >> would that include things like looking at my twitter feed? >> we try to only focus on things that are causal to your ability to repay in the future. >> so the funding -- when you give me money, this money -- you aren't reselling this loan, right? this is purely funded by you and that money presumably is then coming from the venture capitalists backing you up? >> yes. >> so you say you're trying to get loans as low as humanly possible and as i the borrower, i appreciate that, i as venture capitalist don't like this at all. you're saying, look, we're getting 3% return from scott on this. that's a terrible investment.

in many ways -- you can't make up for it with volume, right? >> well, i disagree with part of that. i think what the venture capitalists love about our business, unlike a traditional financial institution that always focuses on a sing many transaction, we're much more -- our business model is more like the best technology and consumer brands that are focused on lifetime value, it's about building a really long term relationship. >> so you have more loans -- my point is if i give you a dollar, i want 12% back. i don't want 3% back. no matter how many dollars you lend out you're giving me 3% back. >> or is what you're doing developing the technology that you can then license to the banks themselves so your lending becomes your loss leader. >> i kind of view that -- that would be like amazon selling it to barnes & noble. our software and data, there's a bunch of thing. it dramatically lowers our

infrastructure. we're able to do this a lot more efficiently. and, it's actually based on -- our underwriting decisions are better and costs are lower. we're able to keep the clients longer because we're delivering so much more value. >> and getting fewer bad loans, helps the bottom line as well. >> we have 100% on time repayments. >> that's not bad. >> you never loan below a fico score of 600. >> that's not correct. we have one 597. >> do you see yourself going -- significantly below a fico score of 600 and disrupting let's say the pay day loans industry? >> well, so, i don't think we'll ever go down into payday loans, that's a totally different market and demographic. what i would say, we ignore fico in our underwriting process because that's really not what we're looking at. we're looking at the full picture. that said, fico is -- it's not

the best model but the model on certain levels all the way down -- at the highest end does work to a certain extent. if someone has a very, very low fico, there's probably other extenuating circumstances that caused them to be there. >> do you see wells fargo or somebody might adopt this idea? is this a business -- big businesses might get into? >> after all, amazon does make its infrastructure available to others through amazon web services and other things, so in that regard, why isn't that a better business model? >> our mission is to give credit to americans at earlier ages and cheaper price. i would love it if wells fargo and jp morgan did better underwriting and cheaper prices to millions of americans that deserve that rate. >> the website is meetearnest, correct? >> correct. >> we'll be back in just a minute.

welcome back. i assume you're familiar with ted talks, easily available online. all kinds of subjects. what's cool about ted talks, they are free, even though a ticket to the actual talk to be in the audience is $6,000 and you have to be invited. ted is at the same time the most elitist and accessible event of its kind. to be a ted speaker, you have to be at the top of your field, one in a million. but then ted invested ted x, where anybody can be a speaker talking about anything they wish. my next guest loves that idea, a theory he calls the res prosty advantage, which says somewhat counter intuitively by sharing your most closely guarded secrets, you can grow your own business. author a book by the same name along with his co-author. he's the man behind -- are you

ready for this -- swifer and febreze, kind of cool. thank you for being with us. >> how is this different? this idea i'm going to put my technology out there and let other people adapt it and use it. how is it different than open source? >> so open source and open innovation is a very important piece of trying to optimize your growth. one of the things has happening, we're not a very social world and partnerships are zreemly valuable to creating growth. the partnerships where you can create cost and make your business better are very common. what there's an opportunity to do now in ted dx is an example of, partnering with the world to create something new. while maintaining that current business and so ted is just as strong or stronger and ted x is completely incremental growth. >> it's almost as if you know you're on to something if your

board says don't do that, that would give away the secrets. >> then you know you have something valuable. what is a better thing that happens, quite often someone knocks on your door, can i have this? then you get to say yes or no. you say no if what they are going to do is basically just eat you. so it's not incremental. you should continue to say no. however, sometimes with those crazy people that come your way, they saw value and so what we want you to do, take those assets, take that right away that you have and use it to grow a new complimentary business, now it's like you're finding a new packard to start the business. >> how would you apply this idea to the business world? >> so, i really -- this book really has a target both very small entrepreneurs to help them

be better but also really the power of a big company like procter & gamble or any of the large companies is they have the ability to scale and for those of us taking venture financing, they have a cost of capital that is extremely admirable. >> right or desirable. >> or desirable. so what happens is they often to find businesses too narrowly. i talk about everybody who is in actually in three industries in order to try to open up your view of the world. and just to take a historic version of it, you have your core business, that's the product you sell. so look at the railroad business, which was, important to silicon valley. the railroad industry, we talk about they missed the move to transportation. >> they forgot what industry they were in. >> forgot what industry they are in. they moved things enmass from place to place even if it doesn't take rails. every company loves their trains too much.

so everything has to look like a train. the real miss and where the res prosty is in communication. understanding that right-of-way, literal land underneath the tracks. people could string wires of it and then instead of sally having to go from new york to chicago twice a year to visit her sister, if you pay attention to the experience, she's communicating when she's there, that is the new business that you can build with your right-of-way. >> reciprocity is an ancient concept, finding ways to grow like fast small companies is quite a problem of longstanding. why that now? what is it about the next ten years that makes reciprocity a much more powerful concept? >> put us in a connected world where partners will be far more enabled than you ever imagine.

super computing, available it's if we wanted to start a company using watson, what that means is all kinds of people have immense capability to do things you never thought they would do. >> that's the other thing that really i wondered about when i was reading your book. you talk about concepts like looking out for each other's interest and that seems to be something that happens between individuals. so how can organizations bake it into their structures in a way that would survive key players leaving, like a ceo? >> the most important thing to a partnership if it's going to be challenging, it's nice to like your partners but sometimes we also have lawyers. and is to define what it is that i've always wanted to do and i could only do it if we do it together. and if both of us answer that question, there's a very narrow piece that is the core that we hold on to in spite of everything else. so if we go back to the

communications example, okay, a new communication startup and railroad company are going to fight a lot. this is not going to be a natural match. however, if they can recall the thing they came to do, i have something you need, we're together in communications, i have these skills and bring them to the game, you're bringing the technology and you're going to understand this thing that goes 1,000 times more frequent than my business. we're going to build a new business model together. if we can stay focused on this very narrow definition of why we came together, we can pretty much ignore everything else. >> if lawyers as part of the answer, then one of the questions i have is around these asymmetric partnerships that your book discusses, partnerships between large companies like fortune 500 entities -- >> or apple. >> and either very small -- >> you have to answer quickly. >> how does the little guy have to look out for? >> when you form the

partnership, it's no different than the venture capital world. you really want to define the reason for the partnership and want to get the right paperwork together so we don't have to worry about that. but the real thing is you want to learn small together then you only worry about scaling. where you get the loss if what you try to do is move so fast before you've proven out where the real win is you try to get too big before you've developed partnership. >> we'll be back with "press here"? just a minute.

that's our show for this week. thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

welcome to comunidad del valle. today we start the national health week. the public health department of santa clara valley. this is your "comunidad del valle." with damian trujillo. >> we begin with the latino comics expo coming to san jose with me here are katherine reyes, cultural heritage center director in san jose and crystal gonzalez, an artist. show us what you have here. >> this is one of my comic books here in the dark, one of the comics that you'll get to see at the comics expo. >> how big of a